Saturday, April 27, 2024

Saturday Good Reads - April 27, 2024


In 1874, a group of friends, fellow painters all, decided to hold an exhibition for their work, which wasn’t exactly accepted by the art world’s mandarins at the time. They didn’t know what to call themselves; a writer, Emile Zola, associated with them, suggested the name “the Actualists.” It didn’t stick. A critic, intending an insult, called them another name. This time it stuck, or the painters embraced it. Michael Prodger at The Critic Magazine considers the first exhibition of the Impressionists held 150 years ago on April 15, 1874. 

Hilary Cass, a highly regarded British pediatrician, was asked by the National Health Service in England to review gender care, following a scandal involving the NHS’s medical hospital that performed such care (it’s been suspended). Her report, based on extensive review of studies, practices, and other data, was not favorable. As The Free Press reported, the UK mistreated kids with gender dysphoria for years. The reaction from gender care supporters was not unexpected. A few members of Parliament called the review inaccurate and “unforgivable.” Cass herself discovered she can no longer travel on public transport in London. Helen Saxby at The Critic Magazine asks where is so much gender confusion coming from? Rebecca McLaughlin at The Gospel Coalition gives a succinct summary of the Cass study. And Scotland has now also suspended treatments for children.

 

There’s a new term in town – reverse gaslighting. This is when authorities attempt to convince you that what you know is crazy is actual normal. Roger Kimball at The Spectator describes it.

 

More Good Reads

 

Israel

 

The Jews Who Didn’t Leave Egypt – Alana Newhouse at Table Magazine.

 

Camping Out at Columbia’s Communist Coachella – Olivia Reingold at The Free Press.

 

Behind the mask: Why the new US campus protestors cover their faces – David Weigel at Semafor.

 

British Stuff

 

And Did Those Feet? In search of the English Soul – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule. 

 

The enigma of Englishness – Luca Johnson at The Critic Magazine.

 

American Stuff

 

Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated – Liz Tracey at JSTOR Daily.

 

The Last Witness to the Shot Heard Round the World – John Kaag at Time Magazine.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Writer, Treat Your Words as Offerings – Kathryn Butler at Story Warren.

 

Shakespeare’s Grief – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

 

A Pair of Moles: Robert Penn Warren & William Styron – Robert Cheeks at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Intifada Comes to America: Now What? – Frank Miele at Real Clear Politics.

 

Kids Are Giving Up on Elite Colleges – and Heading South – Eric Spitznagel at The Free Press. 

 

Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous – Dave Kang and Maria Cheng at Associated Press.

 

Faith

 

Climate Anxiety Paralyzes. Gospel Hope Propels – Andrew Spencer at The Gospel Coalition. 

 

Devotions and the professional life – Thomas Kidd at Thomas Kidd’s Substack.

 

“Why All the TVs? The Death of Attention and Our Loss of Ability to Listen” – Bryan Schneider at Gentle Reformation. 

 

News Media

 

The Rise of Independent Journalism – Alison Hill at Writer’s Digest.

 

Poetry

 

Love (III), poem by George Herbert – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

I Believe – Phil Wickham



Painting: Woman Reading, oil on canvas (1885) by Childe Hassam (1859-1935).

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